Admit it ... you want to see some images of Amherst. Here's a few shots taken from around the North Forest/Maple Road area. The peak period of development in this area was between 1965 and 1980, although some infill development continues to this day.

Many of the following homes are of an architectural style that I call "Northtowns Neo-Roman"; such houses are very common in suburban Buffalo, and variants can be found in suburban Toronto and Montreal. drucee calls the style "Midwest Soft Italianate Colonial", and I've heard a real estate agent call it "Capozzi style". You can see a old discussion about the Northtowns Neo-Roman style here.

Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell. -- Edward Abbey

Kind of like the near south or northwest Chicago suburbs (Oak Lawn, Palos Hills, Des Plaines, Palatine, Mt. Prospect, Arlington Heights) but a little more colonial detailing, a few goofy lawn ornaments (it is western New York, after all), and even a few specimens (the red brick houses in the second through fourth photos from the bottom) that look like either re-imaginations of the Prairie House (see my River Forest thread) or like today's European suburban house (often found in the UK and Belgium).

What's the transit situation in Amherst? Is it possible to live car-free there?

What's the transit situation in Amherst? Is it possible to live car-free there?

There is bus service to and from Amherst along Main St., along Niagara Falls blvd. (eastern border) and along the Millersport Hwy. leading to Lockport. All busses originate and terminate out of the south campus (UB) metrorail station.

The older sections of Amherst are walkable (Eggertsville, Snyder, and Williamsville) but the retail selection seems to be comprised of mainly salons and giftshops geared toward the upper middle class women and not "nieghborhood" retail.

God...that is some of the worst upper-middle income housing I have seen in a awhile. That barely visible italianate style is terrible.

Fortunately, not much is being built in that style today. There are still a few homes, mostly in very high-end subdivisions, reflecting a Northtowns Neo-Roman heritage, but most of what you see in Amherst today is either a Colonial variant, "soft contemporary," or multi-gabled messes.

Want your own suburban Buffalo-style Neo-Roman house?. There's no shortage of them on the market. Most are in Amherst, though.

There's even ranch versions of the Neo-Roman style, but they're less common.

Ugly, I know. So are late 1800s-early 1900s era vernacular telescoping hosues, too, but preservationists consider them important and worthy of conservation. Will they be working to save Amherst's unique Neo-Roamn houses 50 years from now?

Here's more around area. Nothing terrible exciting. The images are about 10 years old.